Traditionally Intel is one of the first companies in the IT industriy to present their quarterly results. Because of their weight on the market they're also in important indicator wether the industry is doing well or struggling. With total revenues of 12.9 Billion US-Dollar Intel doesn't break records this time, but they exceeded analysts forecasts. We had the chance to talk about Intels first quarter 2012 with Dario Bucci. He is Country Manager for Intel Italy and Switzerland. Marc Büchel: On Tuesday evening, after the New York stock exchange closed, Intel
presented its result for the first quarter 2012. What do you think about it in
general?

Dario Bucci: Also in this quarter Intel exceeded analysts expectations
and therefore it surely is a solid start into 2012. Although it's no new record,
like people are almost used to, it's still a good result. The industry had to
face a tough environment and therefore it's even more important that Intel was
able to perform with a solid first quarter. There was for example the HDD crisis
which hit several companies hard. And then there was also a lot of anxiety in
the industry and people were nervous. Another reason for concern was the overall
economic situation. One reason why Intel was performing well can be found with
the emerging markets. As an example there is the chinese market which has grown
by 17 percent. On the other hand there are the mature market - like Switzerland
- where Intel has seen a decrease in the consumer segment by ten percent.
Nevertheless the overall situation is good. Especiall the large enterprise and
data center business is growing. Furthermore there is the networking and storage
part which was also able to perform well. Only the server business showed flat
revenues.

Marc Büchel: Obviously the delay within the Intel Architecture Group
has had an negative effect on the income compared to last years first quarter.
What do you expect for the second quarter 2012?

Dario Bucci: Intel has started to ship 22 naometer processors to OEMs.
These new processors are not just a Die shrink, these CPUs there are also based
on three dimensional transistors now. Furthermore there were several major
architectural changes, especially regarding the integrated graphics. Therefore
Intel had to face tough challenges. Furthermore expectations in the industry are
very high when Intel is going to lunch a new product and Intel works very hard
to come up to these expectations. Probably in June a new wave of Ultrabooks will
hit the market and we feel confident that this will take mobile computing to a
whole new level.

Marc
Büchel: You just jumped to the Ultrabook initiative. Do you see some trends
specific for the Swiss market?

Dario Bucci: It is well known that the Swiss market is very responsive,
especially for high-end products and components. Therefore the business with
Ultrabooks started very well in Switzerland. Intel also has a very powerful
marketing tool at hand with its Intel Inside programm. This allows us to act
very agil in all targeted markets via our OEMs like, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus,
Toshiba, ... They all have Ultrabooks in there line-up which generating solid
sales in Switzerland. At IDF we presented the first Intel smartphone. We hope we
can present this exciting product at the beginning of next year or even this
year.